


Wicker

by Anonymous



Series: AU where Jon doesn't understand spanking [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Aftercare, Corporal Punishment, Do Not Archive, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Spanking, consent hell, mild ball injury, sadistic!Elias
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25556848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Oops! Jon was rude to another statement giver. He should have learnt his lesson the first time. Elias is going to make sure this one sticks.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: AU where Jon doesn't understand spanking [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1825969
Comments: 6
Kudos: 49
Collections: Anonymous





	Wicker

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't read the first one, the conceit here is that Jon is under the misapprehension bosses regularly spank their employees.
> 
> ...who's going to tell him? Not Elias!

"How long has it been, Jon, since our last talk?"

_whoosh_

Jon's eyes followed the downward arc of the rugbeater as he struggled to focus on the question.

"Th-three months, I think. At least two, but no more than three." He swallowed, eyes squeezed shut, then composed himself. "I take it there's been another complaint."

Elias's next swing was as long and graceful as a golf swing. He froze at the pinnacle, looking at Jon over his shoulder, body a long curved line, the rugbeater over the opposite shoulder. He pointed at Jon. "I think you're right. I should have checked. In any case, not as long as I'd hoped."

"Who was it? Dr. Elliott? Ms. King?"

Elias hissed through his teeth, pulling slowly through another practice golf swing. "Oh dear, Jon. So there are multiple possibilities?"

Jon cursed himself sitting in the chair, clammy hands bunched up on his knees. "Dr. Elliott caught me unawares with what I initially mistook for a piece of garbage-"

"Your interactions with Ms. King, actually, are the point of concern today." Elias had smoothly transitioned to practicing his tennis swing, an exercise better suited to the shape of the rugbeater.

Where had Elias even found the thing? It was a wicker paddle much like the one his grandmother had owned. It was hard to make out with it in motion, but the woven canes that formed the flat head even looked like the same celtic knot-like shape he remembered from childhood. Jon had never seen one like it in any store.

"Do you remember why it's important to be cordial and kind to statement givers?" The rugbeater chopped through the air with a whistle.

_How do I get out of this? Can I pretend I think it's a joke? Maybe it is a joke?_

Elias's theatrical relish, the rugbeater plucked from the mantel of a house that didn't even exist any more— It felt like a joke, though one played on him by some cosmic force.

_If I refuse, will I lose my job?_

"Jon?"

"Yes. I-sorry. It's because our statement givers have been through traumatic experiences and we must create an atmosphere of acceptance if we want them to trust us with those experiences."

_I'm being ridiculous. It only hurt so much because the last time she used the rugbeater on me, I was a child. It'll be humiliating. It will feel childish. But it's not going to be physically agonizing, it'll just hurt my pride. That's the point._

Elias seemed pleased with Jon's answer. He was calmly elaborating on what Jon had said, now rolling the handle of the rugbeater between his palms, so the head twirl-blurred into a sphere.

Jon breathed deeply. He knew how this was going to go. He knew the dread itself was worse than the pain, and that the dread was a factor he could control. But he couldn't get his body to understand that. His idiot body was fairly certain it was going to die. His bowels were water. His knees were water. 

At least there was no danger of involuntary arousal this time. His mouth twitched grimly at the realization.

Elias, annoyed, paused in his recitation. "Are you listening?"

"Yes, sir."

Elias let the moment hang before giving a satisfied nod and resuming his play with the rugbeater. "Do you know what the worst part is, Jon?"

This was a question that had been put to him many times before, in many similar rooms. Jon cleared his throat, eyes attentively — but not confrontationally — locked on Elias. "I've made you repeat yourself, sir."

A slight frown. Jon's heart gave a thump inside him like a couch falling over. A wave of something cold passed through his body, pushing his soul slightly out of it. It bobbed a little above and to the side.

"I don't at all mind repeating myself. I don't resent this part of my duties — hell, as far as I'm concerned, I could have you over my knee three times a week. It's not about that, Jon. This is about the Institute's reputation."

_She didn't think much of us to begin with._

It was a good thing Jon was a little bit outside himself, like he was communicating with his own body through a can and string telephone. By the time the impulse to speak worked its way down the line to his mouth, he'd thought better of interrupting Elias, who had already gone on.

"It's not as though you didn't recognize Ms. King. You knew who she was right away. You knew she had a platform with substantial reach in the paranormal interest community. And you still intentionally antagonized her."

It had been intentional. Carefully couched in passive aggression, but yes, he'd meant to return the insult.

"Did you think about the consequences to the Institute if she used her influence to smear our name?"

Jon hadn't thought about it, actually. Not at the time, or afterward. She hadn't seemed the type, somehow. He assumed she'd blow her top, then move on, rather than hold a grudge. But then, it hadn't occurred to him she'd go to Elias about their altercation, either.

Jon admitted he hadn't.

"You're an intelligent man." It was a rebuke. Elias stepped closer, thoughtfully twirling the rugbeater around his shoulder. "Can I ask why this it didn't occur to you in the moment?"

It was an excellent question. Jon's thoughts were still coming slowly down the string telephone. Elias waited patiently for a reply. "I-I don't know. I suppose I felt provoked. I was angry and didn't think." 

Why _had_ he been so angry, though? What had she said that had stung his pride so sharply? Melanie King insulting the institute—insulting the tape recorder—had been something he should have brushed off. It wasn't as though he was unaware of how the Institute looked to outsiders. Jon had felt his own scorn, up late poring over the leaked documents on his home computer in the late nineties. He'd felt it return when he saw the mouldering wreck of the Archives for the first time. When he'd blown the dust off thirty year old equipment to try to work on the digitization project.

When had Jon started feeling such an irrational degree of identification with his work? It wasn't as though Melanie King had insulted his dead mother or...or whatever. He was hard pressed to think of something that would have caused the same level of smoldering offense as her curled lip at the sight of the recorder.

Elias smiled blandly and spoke, interrupting Jon's train of thought. "In that case, I think you could use some practice mastering your emotions." He resumed spinning the rugbeater between his hands. "You'll meditate on emotional regulation during our session today."

"How many?" Jon asked.

"That will depend on you, Jon. Let us begin."

"May I use the restroom first?"

An uncomfortable pause, then, "Hurry back."

Elias didn't offer his ensuite. As Jon headed down the hall, returning once again to the second floor bathroom, Jon wished he had. There would be no possibility of escape if he had. Jon wouldn't have to fight the impulse to bolt back down the stairs to the basement, or straight out the front doors onto the street.

Standing over the bowl, what had felt like a straining bladder let out only the barest trickle. Jon waited another minute or so to make certain, then zipped up and washed his hands thoroughly. Delaying. He could only delay so long. His face was grey in the mirror above the sink. He felt grey and transparent, still detached from his body.

He returned to Elias's office, entering with a soft knock.

"Ah, Jon. Over the desk this time, I think."

Elias wanted plenty of room for the windup, of course, Jon realized. He crossed to the desk and bent robotically at the hips.

"Trousers," Elias reminded him.

Jon stood and unfastened them, letting them fall around his ankles, his belt buckle thumping against the thin institutional carpet.

"Keep going, I want you bare."

Jon lets his shorts drop atop the pile. He'd knew he'd have been blushing at the thought of Elias seeing his narrow hairless arse if he hadn't still been feeling too outside himself to react.

Elias waited patiently while Jon positioned himself, arms stretched out ahead of him to grab the opposite edge of the desk. Jon could see the pale smudge of Elias's reflection in the glass-fronted curio cabinet behind the desk.

"Comfortable?"

_No._

"It's fine."

Pride didn't let Jon say it. He clung to his determination not to embarrass himself. Take it like a man. Better than anyone else would. Better than Gertrude or Sasha or Tim or-but when the first blow hit, he still yelped. 

It was the loudest sound in the room. There was no full-fruited slap to disguise his whimpers of pain like there had been when Elias had spanked him barehanded. The rugbeater struck his buttocks with a soft tok no louder than a pen hitting the floor.

Each cane sank into his flesh. Fire, drawn in individual fine lines.

"Count, Jon."

"One-" It was a whimper.

It was worse than Elias's hand. There was no comparison. It was worse, even, than he remembered from childhood. A protective fabric had fallen across the memories of the pain. Those memories were wrapped up like furniture under dustclothes, labelled simply 'NO.'

"F-fi-f-five."

It was getting hard to speak at all through his sobbing breaths. If Elias would just give him a moment to stop shaking, to catch his breath-

_tok_

"Five."

Jon squirmed shamelessly, hoping the rugbeater would fall this time on some unmarked bit of flesh. His legs spread as far as they could, bound by the trousers around his ankles, offering up the cool, unmarked insides of his thighs. The rugbeater fell, and _oh_

Jon's vision went black and his cheek hit the desk as his knees collapsed. 

He returned slowly, to the sound of his own ragged, sobbing breaths. He wasn't sure how long it took for the black star that had swallowed him to shrink and let his mind return. It was a bad return, queasy waves of pain pushing against his face and rolling through his body.

He was pulled so thin between the pain and the dread of the rugbeater falling across his abused flesh again, it took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out what had happened to him. The edge of the rugbeater had smacked into his balls. That was all.

 _Oh, so it is as horrible as everyone says it is,_ he thought distantly.

The desk was growing wet beneath his cheek from his condensed breath. Tears too, he realized. They were running freely from his face like something thinner than water. He got his feet under him, raised his upper body shakily onto his elbows.

"Five!"

"Six, Jon," Elias corrected chipperly.

"Sih. Sih-six!"

Jon counted on, not tracking whether he kept any order. Time swirled away from him as the edges of his vision shrank. As his head lolled weakly on his neck and he got a grip on himself and then lost it again and the fire radiating from where the rugbeater struck him again and again swallowed everything. Time counted out in tears and sweat and drool falling in drops in the desk.

And right on the edge of escape—the edge of weightless numbness—Elias stopped.

It took Jon a long time to realize he'd stopped. Elias hadn't announced they were done.

Jon was hunched over his elbows, rebreathing his own wet, desperate breaths and had been for a while. He didn't hurt. Or the pain was there, but held behind a thin membrane that let him see the shape of it but kept it from flowing over him.

He had to move very carefully to avoid breaking the membrane. By two degrees, by three degrees, he raised his head.

Oh. Elias _was_ still there. Jon could see his reflection dim and distant in the glass of the curio cabinet, esoteric tchotchkes behind it, unglazed pottery and horsehair and crudely wrought iron.

Elias's reflection was trembling a little. Like a lorry had driven down the street outside and shaken the glass. Or like Elias was moving just a little bit.

Jon blinked groggily, narrowing his eyes.

He heard a faint satisfied noise. When Jon looked up again, he couldn't see Elias any longer. He had a moment of panic, not knowing where the man and his rugbeater were, but then Jon saw movement at the corner of his vision. Elias disappearing into the ensuite.

He let his head hang again, relieved, and rested.

Jon had been drifting for some time and hadn't heard the door open, but he didn't jump when Elias nudged his shoulder. He still hurt, but in a steady, restful way, a soft heavy blanket around all his reactions.

Elias showed him a squat jar of aloe salve. "I'm going to put this on you."

 _No,_ Jon wanted to shout, _no. If you touch me, you'll break it. You'll break the barrier holding it all back, and all of the pain will rush out all at once and-and I won't live._

He was able to hold back from screaming, and from letting the whimper at the back of his throat escape. But the panicked breath that hissed from his nostrils betrayed him.

Elias knelt so that his face was in Jon's field of view. He looked friendly. Like he was enjoying himself.

Anger and hate bubbled up inside Jon from out of nowhere. It seethed in his stomach like something rotting at the bottom of a swamp. He didn't understand it; where it had come from, where it was directed. Melanie King, for goading him until he lost his temper then running to Elias? Or maybe she hadn't, and it had been one of his assistants who'd told? One of his assistants, who were right now off eating their comfortable lunches, maybe laughing with each other over how Elias was tearing a stripe out of him. Or was it Elias himself he was mad at?

Jon squashed the hate rising inside him. No. He was being unfair. He'd brought this on himself with his own poor behavior.

In the moment or two it took Jon to boil and subside again, Elias had managed to get the lid off the pot. He dabbed a bit of the ointment onto Jon's hand. "How's that? Nice and cool, isn't it? I'm not going to apply any pressure, just coat the skin."

Jon let him. It did feel blissfully cool and soothing. Elias was as gentle as his word, working with a feather light touch. The faint air currents in the room slid across Jon's moist skin in sheets of silky cool relief. Goose pimples rose on his folded forearms. It didn't erase the pain. He wasn't numb. But the coolness swirled with the heat of his smarting flesh into a feeling that was hard to describe. It made him want to groan, to stretch and flex and writhe. But it was a feeling he could bear, at least.

"Th-thank you, Elias."

"My pleasure, Jon," Elias said mildly, still smoothing the ointment gently into Jon's hot skin. "Any responsible supervisor should do this much after disciplining a subordinate," he continued in a didactic tone. Jon wasn't about to admit no one had bothered with him. It stung slightly to realize they should have.

"I-I should let you have your desk back," Jon said at last, looking over his shoulder to where Elias was sitting in a guest chair with his laptop in his lap. Elias had finished a few minutes ago and was letting the ointment dry.

"In your own time," he replied, unconcerned.

Jon couldn't put it off any longer. He couldn't just lounge on Elias's desk with his arse hanging out all day. Jon got up, Elias putting aside his work to stand and help him to his feet. He was embarrassed to take Elias's arm, but he needed it. Jon's hips moved like a rusty hinge as he straightened up, the skin across his arse and thighs hot and throbbing-tight.

He realized immediately bending down to pull up his pants and trousers was not going to be possible. His hand fisted into the fabric of Elias's shirt sleeve as the room tilted slowly around him, blitzed on the pain. He shut his eyes, face contorting as he struggled for control. Elias patiently untangled Jon's hand from his sleeve, guiding it to the top of the desk. Then, satisfied Jon wasn't going to keel over, he knelt and redressed him.

Jon was still trying to get used to the texture and pressure of the fabric against his flesh when he felt Elias take his hand and place it around an object. He opened his eyes. A paper cup of water. Elias was holding a pill in front of his face.

Jon opened his mouth and let Elias place it between his lips, then washed it down with the water.

"What was that?"

"Just a painkiller. I'd like you to take the rest of the day off, Jon."

Jon blinked, opening his mouth, ready to protest. It was a Friday--he hadn't had time to prepare his weekend work yet.

Elias took the empty cup from his hand and set it aside. He opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a manila folder.

"I've prepared a few statements you can follow up on, if you have the time."

"Oh. Thank you."

Elias guided him out the office door and to the elevator, where Jon finally shook him loose.

The doors were about to close when Elias spoke. Jon hit the button to keep them open, wincing as the movement pulled the fabric of his trousers roughly across his tender, swollen skin.

"I want to make sure you understand I am generally very pleased with your work, Jon. I wouldn't be putting in half the effort if I didn't see your potential. You're shaping up very nicely."

The earnest care in Elias's face was dizzying. Jon stood there, blushing and speechless as Elias smiled and told him to enjoy his weekend, then turned and went back down the hall to his office. At last, he let his hand fall and the doors slid closed.

**Author's Note:**

> Next time: someone else gets spanked!


End file.
